


At Least You Don't Want To Kill Me

by Amicus_Cordis



Series: a garden full of plance [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, But Not Much, F/M, Injury, dislocated shoulder, that one au where one's a hero and one's a 'villain' but as civilians they're oblivious roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-12 10:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19944619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amicus_Cordis/pseuds/Amicus_Cordis
Summary: Fighting the elusive Green is a pain in the ass, but at least Lance gets to crash with his awesome roommate Pidge afterwards.After a nasty battle with the Blue Paladin, Pidge faces the idea that maybe there is no one who cares if she makes it home at the end of the night.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all! Here's my part for the plance mini bang. Thanks to [Oxto](https://merla-epoque.tumblr.com/) for being my beta and [the lovely gardeners at planceminibang](https://planceminibang.tumblr.com/) for organizing this. Go read the other works and look at all the awesome art that's a part of this! But first, check out the amazing [art](https://sishiroikumo.tumblr.com/post/186531318433/lance-looked-across-her-ribs-where-he-was) for this fic from the talented Shii! You can also read this fic and enjoy other shenanigans at my [Tumblr.](https://amicuscordis.tumblr.com/post/186505033665/at-least-you-dont-want-to-kill-me/) Enjoy!

Before the car had completely stopped, Lance was stumbling out of it, teetering on cigarette butts and plastic bottles that lined the drains. Shiro reached from the backseat and out the passenger door, catching Lance’s arm before he could completely fall. “You good, Lance?”

Lance yanked his arm away from Shiro, nearly falling over again in the process, and slammed the door shut. Hunk, watching from behind the wheel, was already rolling down the window. “I’m offended, honestly,” Lance announced, gesticulating with his longs arms as he paced in a small circle. “He’s never tased me hard enough to knock me out before. Whatever happened to that good ol’ nemesis bond?”

“It means he felt threatened,” Shiro said, pulling his arm back into the car. He was not supposed to even be in the car, much less the city, but when Hunk had set out to take Lance home, Shiro had reasoned that in a vehicle in the dark, who could identify the missing Kerberos pilot? “You and Keith will get him next time.”

Or the kid would just find a new way to outthink them again. Lance shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugged. Shiro and Hunk shared a look. For a terrifying three seconds, Lance thought Hunk might be about to try to argue to come inside with him, as if Lance’s getting pissed off at an alien-aided villain was reason to mark him an invalid. That spoiled the spirit of hanging out, though, and made the usually social Lance just want to be alone.

Well, not entirely alone, but she was a special case.

Whatever concerns Hunk had, he decided to let it go. Stuck to the car, Shiro had no choice but to follow. Hunk hunched over so he could give Lance a solid look out the window. “Call me before executing any stupid ideas, okay?”

“Sure, whatever.”

Hunk kept his stare on Lance, as if to reaffirm that he meant it, then rolled up the window and pulled away from the curb. Lance waited until they turned out of the parking lot onto the main road, taking the time to kick one of the plastic bottles at his feet. It ricocheted off the curb into his shin. He flipped it off.

No lights came through the window of the second-floor apartment. He fumbled with the keys, brain not entirely computing which way to put it into the lock. Damn headache. He rubbed at his forehead as at last the lock turned, the door opened, and he could limp inside. “Pidge, I’m home!”

Not that he expected a response, considering the off lights, but it still squeezed at his chest. He had to come home licking his wounds and his roommate was not even there to make fun of him and then bandage him up.

He trudged into the bathroom, wincing at the fluorescent lights when he flipped the switch. “Stupid Green, stupid Keith. . .”

Keeping jacket and shirt intact, he shirked his shoes and jeans and beheld himself in the mirror. Right below his boxers was the bandage, a white square to cover the cut and surrounding burn left behind by Green. Shiro had not been wrong about Green feeling threatened. For weeks, Lance had been the only one sent to capture him, but with that obvious failure, and Green progressively gathering more and more information on the Kerberos mission and who knew what else with each venture into the Garrison, Allura had finally sent Keith to join him. The tag teaming had almost worked: Lance had got a nice shot in the shoulder of Green’s armor, and then Keith had got him with the hilt of his sword, right at the rib cage on his left side. So damn close, if Green hadn’t managed to tase Keith, and then tase Lance while he freaked out over Keith going down. “Stupid, stupid. . .”

He wanted to take the bandage off. Mostly to see the burn and shallow cut for himself, since Coran had patched him up still unconscious. There was also maybe a small part that wanted Pidge to help him bandage it up again when she got home. But who could guess when that would be? He was too tired to do it again himself. Tired and headachey and maybe a little sulky. He kicked his jeans into the corner of the bathroom, slapped the light switch down, and trudged out into the kitchen.

In the fridge, he dug around for some leftovers that were semi-edible. He couldn’t remember whose turn it was to buy groceries and whose it was to clean old food out of the fridge but they both had been slacking. Maybe he would ask Pidge if they should just do it all together tomorrow, because gods that sounded better than going back to the hidden Castle of Lions to hear Allura go on about how Green must be gathering intel for the Galra, because the technology Green used was far too advanced for Earth, what was the point of any of their defensive prep if the Galra already knew how to wipe out the Garrison when they would first invade, you must do better to stop him, Lance! At least now Keith would get to look as sour as Lance always felt.

Leftover alfredo it was. Except he was too damn tired to warm it—the microwave clock warned it was past two in the morning, and being knocked out didn’t count as sleep—so he took a fork and fell onto the couch to eat it cold.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, mistake—” Lance wiped his tongue on his sleeve as he tossed the alfredo onto the coffee table and took the remote instead. Who really needed food, anyway? When he turned on the TV, it was set for the next episode of _Legendary Defender_ from where he and Pidge had left off the night before. He clicked around for something light— _Garfle Warfle Snick,_ why not—and as it started to play, blindly reached around the couch until he found a throw blanket and pulled it up around his shoulders, the tip of it brushing his nose. It smelled just a little more like Pidge than the rest of the apartment did. He looked to the door.

By the end of the episode, she still had not come in. Another episode, still no Pidge. Which was fine. Her whereabouts at late hours were far from the only secret about her. He had quite a few questions—Where do you actually work? Who’s the Matt you looked startled you mentioned that one time? Do we have to go to our rooms tonight or can we camp on the couch together?—but they operated under a no questions policy. He didn’t ask about her private life, he didn’t have to tell about how he’s actually working with two aliens from some planet called Altea to prepare Earth’s defenses for an invasion that’s due in some eight months.

The blanket still around his shoulders, he stumbled to his room, patting at his pockets for his phone. It had been at twelve percent when he armored up to take on Green. He had not touched it once since then but he would not be surprised if it were already dead.

When he plugged it into the charger next to his bed, he found staring at him a clock reading 3:24—and several notifications from Pidge.

_[1:36] Missed Call_

_[1:41] Can you come get me?_

_[1:53] Lance please respond_

“Shit!” He pressed the call, set the phone to his ear, and pulled the charger’s cord to its limit as he stretched for pants and another pair of shoes. She answered on the third ring. “Shit, Pidge, are you injured?” She had always had her own scrapes when she came home at night, but again, don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t mention that you kind of adore getting to help her bandage up, but god if she was really hurt this time—

_“I’m at the parking garage on Olkarion Avenue.”_

Lance held the phone between his ear and shoulder to tie his sneakers. Two blocks from the apartment. She didn’t have a vehicle, always using public transportation, that Lance knew of. What the hell was she doing there? Was she mugged? Don’t ask, don’t tell. “I’m coming. My phone’s at—” He freed a hand to look at it. “—two percent. It died and I just got it to a charger, I’m so sorry. I have to leave it, be watching for me, okay?”

_“Okay.”_

He couldn’t hang up. Fortunately, she did, and then with only his keys he ran out the door and down the stairs. His thigh began to burn all over again, irritated at the movement, but still he sprinted all the way to Olkarion Avenue. When he slowed to look for her, the world was spinning, and he had to hold onto the ticket dispenser for the garage to keep from toppling. He would have missed her, tucked away in the shadows between the cement wall and a trashcan just beyond the exit, if she had not called his name.

When her hand dipped into the light to grab at the rim of the trashcan, he saw the muscles in her arm strain as she failed to pull herself up. In another moment, he was at her side, dipping his shoulder under hers to pull her up. But as their sides pressed into each other, she yelped and lurched away from him, slamming her right shoulder into the wall of the garage. Her shout echoed in the vast parking lot as she grabbed at the shoulder, curling back into herself on the ground.

Helpless, Lance spared a glance around the garage, to assure no one was around, then knelt in front of her. “How can I help? What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

She was back in the shadows, but he could still see, could still feel, her grimace. “I may have had to pop it back into place.”

“What—” Don’t ask, don’t tell. “—the hell. Do you need a doctor?”

“No,” she stated, too firmly. “Let’s just go home.”

Pidge still could not stand on her own, but holding her up without some pressure on one of the pained areas was near impossible. It was concentrated in two places: her right shoulder, and her left side around her ribcage. Her legs were sore but fine, so after he pulled her to her feet she could walk with just holding on to him for support, seething at any disturbance to the wounds. As they stepped into the light, Lance saw her green shirt sticking to the hurt on her side by spots of blood.

The stairs were the hardest; she was rasping curses by the time they made it to their door. Pidge was the one who shut and locked it behind them, an action Lance had forgotten in lieu of trying to get her to the bathroom. He felt his mouth going dry. Sure, it was only two blocks to walk, but she could have called an Uber or something, but she had stayed hidden from public transportation, and now she was locking the door, as if someone was following her, and—

With him spaced, she tried to walk to the bathroom alone, though winced and nearly fell. Lance caught her arm, let her hold onto him as they crossed the apartment. He seated her on the covered toilet, then pulled out the first-aid kit. His face burned as he remembered wanting her to come home and patch him up earlier, like blood and bandages were just a mode of his one-sided flirtation.

By the time he set the kit on the corner of the counter, she had pulled her shirt up to show the wound on her side. The bruise covered a large circle, from the bottom of her ribcage up to her sports bra. The cut itself was small, and not nearly so bad as the blood on her shirt had made it seem. Not deep, just a shallow scrape that ripped off some of the skin.

Lance was no expert in injuries. A few months ago, he had been even worse. But three months of being a paladin, he had learned what an impact against armor looked like. He swallowed thickly. “Okay. Okay. Does it hurt to breathe?”

“Kind of.”

Her shaky breaths that she did not let get too deep meant that it was probably more than kind of. She was gripping the toilet paper roll, distorting it in her hand like a stress ball.

Lance looked across her ribs, where he was becoming more and more confident something had smashed against a chest plate. And he hated that he might know what it was and loved that he was not allowed to ask. “Doesn’t look broken or warped. May I?”

When she nodded, he ghosted his fingers across ridged skin. She held her breath the entire time, grimacing only when his fingers trailed over the sticky cut. “Doesn’t feel broken either. Not that I’m an expert, it just, seems like a normal ribcage. Probably just bruised. I can’t wrap it, but we’ll get it cleaned up, okay?”

She squeezed the toilet paper tighter, but nodded. “Yeah, sure, fine.”

Though Pidge grimaced as the antiseptic dotted over the cut, she didn’t make a sound. Sure, she had much worse pains to focus on, but in her silent pain Lance only saw Green’s body stopped mid-motion by Lance’s shot, jerking and collapsing silently as if already blacked out from shock or pain, and Keith hadn’t even smashed their rib cage with his sword yet. As he pressed the bandage over the cut, lightly pressing the sticky part down on her bruises, his eyes went to her shoulder, to the edge of purple skin sticking out under her collar.

_It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me._

Of course it wasn’t. The injury to her side could easily be explained by running into a lamppost or something, same with her shoulder. Pidge maybe had issues with authority, and dabbled in conspiracy theories, but same for everyone else their age. She was a genius, but he had absolutely no reason to believe she would want to work with the Galra or break into the Garrison.

He had no reason to believe she wouldn’t want to do those things either. It struck him with nausea that he didn’t really know his roommate at all.

He put the bandage and antiseptic back in the kit, put his hand on the top, about to close it, but waited. “O-Okay.” He winced at his own stutter. “Can I look at your shoulder too?”

She was already pulling her shirt back down. “Skin didn’t break.”

“You dislocated it, Pidge.”

“ _I_ didn’t do anything.” A near confirmation that she earned this in a fight. God he wished she hadn’t said that. “I’ll lift my arms, you pull it off.”

He said he wanted to see her shoulder, but he didn’t actually want to, and hesitated to grab the hem of the tee when she lifted her arms. Her right arm could not get as high as the left. In her pain, she gave him a tense look to _hurry the fuck up._ He did, taking the hem, lifting her shirt but hesitating when the first of the bruise came into sight on her collar. His stomach flipped. He pulled it the rest of the way before Pidge could complain.

No puncture, just a round splotch of purple and blue and yellow on her shoulder and collar, all emanating from the precise spot he had been aiming.

“Christ, Pidge,” he breathed. “I’ll... I’ll get you one, a shirt, get you a shirt, without blood on it.”

He had not even examined it, a fact that made Pidge squint at him. “Okay… Can you get one that buttons in the front? I don’t want to try lifting my arms again, that hurt like hell.”

“Sure.” His voice sounded distant even to him. He swallowed down bile as he drifted from the bathroom, across the hall into his own room. He dropped the shirt on the floor. Folded himself at the foot of his bed. The world was wrong, like reality had shifted over three feet and nothing he touched was right anymore and his roommate wasn’t his roommate.

Not an hour ago he had been on the verge of passing out from exhaustion, but now the adrenaline had him shaking in a nervous high that he wasn’t sure he could ever come down from. Still twisted on the floor, he stretched his gangly arm to the bedside table. He managed to curl one finger around the cord and pulled the charging phone into his hand. Open the contacts. Find Keith. His finger hovered above the symbol of the little green phone.

Time was as unreal as the apartment they shared. He could never tell how much had passed when he heard her voice. “Lance? You okay?”

He locked the phone on Keith’s contact, yanked it off the charger, and shoved it into his pocket as he stood. “Yeah, one sec.” He stopped in the door of his room, remembered his mission, and returned to his closet. He grabbed the first buttoned shirt he could find, a blue and black plaid thing that was pretending to be flannel. By the time he made it back to the bathroom, the world had stabilized, and yet all had an almost fuzzy, numb aspect to it, and Pidge seemed too far away for him to actually give her the shirt as he passed it into her hand.

Wary of her shoulder, she put her arms in the sleeve, and then with only one hand buttoned the shirt. The process would be slow just from buttons’ known stubbornness versus one unaccustomed human hand, but crawled as she kept looking up to where he occupied the doorway, her expression growing in suspicion with each glance. “You’re acting weird.”

“I’m no medic,” he said, the diversion smooth across unfeeling lips. “You’re probably going to lose an arm or something.”

“It hurt so bad at first I thought it got blown off.” She grinned, mischievous, as if her sincere statement were something hilarious. Lance didn’t laugh. “If it falls off, I can just make a prosthetic.” When even that failed to get a reaction, her lips twisted, sour at the defeat, and she kept her eyes down to finish buttoning the shirt. “Anyway, want to watch _Legendary_ _Defender_?”

He offered her a hand and she took it. Once she was situated on the couch he fixed ice packs for her ribs and shoulders. _Legendary_ _Defender_ played. He missed all of it. Pidge took over an hour to nod off, kept awake by sharp pain whenever she began to breathe too deeply. The sky was already colored by the time he was sure she was asleep, her head tilted back into the couch cushions and mouth hung open. He whispered her name. With no response, he stood, walked into the kitchen, and propped himself on the counter. Keith’s contact was still up when he pulled out his phone.

 _“Hello?”_ The great Red Paladin’s voice was groggy and more than a little irritated. Normally, Lance expected, Keith would be up with the sun, but he was probably trying to sleep off the attack from the night before. Lance wasn’t sure if he should feel guilty or not about waking him.

“Hey, it’s… it’s about Green.”

Something crackled on the other side, sheets shifting as Keith sat up and the sleep left his voice. _“You have a lead?”_

“I just wanted to say… I’m sorry for letting them get away.”

A pause, then Keith sighed, dispelling any heightened emotion he had in that breath to address Lance with a still voice. _“It’s not your fault. The guy’s good at what he does. I’m honestly impressed you’ve been able to face him alone this far. We’ll get him next time.”_

“Yeah.”

Keith hung up. Lance set the phone on the counter and watched the felon on the couch breathe as the first blue light fell across her face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second and theoretically last chapter. Thanks again to [Oxto](https://merla-epoque.tumblr.com/) for betaing and be sure to check out Shii's lovely art [here!](https://sishiroikumo.tumblr.com/post/186531318433/lance-looked-across-her-ribs-where-he-was) And don't forget to check out all the other works that are part of the planceminibang. Enjoy!

The blue paladin was not alone this time. Pidge noticed the cloud of dust was larger than usual, and as it came closer, she saw the red speeder alongside the blue. If she were actually hoping to overpower him, if she were still planning to break into the Galaxy Garrison, that might have been a problem.

She crouched behind a tall agave and waited. Five feet in front of her was a steep drop to a crevice dug by centuries of running washes. Minutes passed, and she heard the speeders nearby, going down the slope into the crevice for cover in the last leg of their journey to the Garrison. When they reached the bottom of the slope, a light appeared on Pidge’s wristcomp, alerting her that the concentrated EMP from the device she had planted had activated. The speeders coasted, losing speed to stop twenty feet ahead of where she was hidden. Pidge moved along the edge, staying out of sight, to catch up with them. The red paladin was standing on top of his speeder before they had even stopped. “What just happened?”

“Green’s nearby,” Blue said behind him. Two months of fighting and he had finally started learning. Still with the advantage above, Pidge took a moment to be amused that perhaps her nemesis knew her better than anyone else on Earth.

She heard the telltale whir of the bayards turning into weapons. Blue’s was a gun. She had never seen Red before and would not prematurely say what his was. They remained quiet, no doubt watching for her, both oblivious as she typed away on her wristcomp, accessing Blue’s bayard through his suit. Aside from its default state, it apparently had three forms: a blaster, a sniping rifle, and a broadsword that she doubted he ever accessed, much less knew how to use. Her suspicions were confirmed when she forcibly transformed the bayard and he yelled, “What the heck!”

So she could still catch him by surprise after all. That… was an oddly lonely feeling. One she didn’t have time to think on. While he was still in shock, she curled her hands over the top of the crevice wall and threw herself down. The wash was only ten feet wide and thirty deep, too steep to use the grapple on her katar to safely swing down, but she did throw the grapple into the opposing wall to direct her fall. Too busy staring at the sword he had dropped, Blue did not see her until his shoulders broke her fall.

They had barely hit the ground when she saw Red running for them. With a silent curse, she rolled aside from the downward swing of his sword. She had no time to plant her device on Blue, and now Red stood between them, already pivoting into another attack. Pidge stood, sweeping to the side and deflecting his heavy sword strike to the dirt.

His stance changed after that, narrow sword going to one hand for quick, concentrated swipes and jabs. Pidge parried each, just fast enough to keep any from landing, a thin panic rising over the adrenaline that propelled her body just safely out of reach–her armor could protect from the average blade, sure, but Blue had always used his blaster, and always aimed for her environment to impede her, not _her_. She had never fought against another blade before. She needed only to stick the device on him before she could leave, but he was too sharp for her to get close.

Their blades locked. He shoved her back. She almost lost her footing as she stumbled away, putting several feet between them, but as she grounded once more she threw the grapple. He had been about to speak, she thought, maybe to ask her intentions—he didn’t seem the kind to throw out a “Come here often?” like Blue—but the flying blade made him decide otherwise. He moved around it and without another thought for it, charged, not noticing the blade latch on to his unparked speeder. Pidge yanked on the speeder, and without the brakes activated the hovering vehicle spun freely toward them. Pidge ducked under Red’s swing and dove aside. Red did not realize the speeder was coming until it pinned him at the waist against the wall. Now she just had to figure out how to inconspicuously get the tracker on him or Blue.

Blue was only just starting to stand. She lifted her own weapon, ready to fight. She had always said his mid-battle banter was annoying—his “Aw, you have a cute little weapon” and “Admit it, you can’t destroy a face this good” while gesturing to the visor she could not see past—but damn if she didn’t prefer it to Red’s silence. She would not get it, though, because just as Blue grabbed his useless sword, she saw Red in the corner of her eye place both hands on the speeder and send it propelling towards her with a hard shove.

In the tiny space, she was barely able to jump in time, touching a foot to the speeder to carry her to its other side. Red met her, sword ready, and they were locked in closely again, his fast strikes of the sword keeping her engaged. But she could tell he had already lost track of the drifting speeder again. Red zeroed in too closely on his enemy. That meant she had to dedicate most of her energy to avoiding him, yes, but with his lack of awareness of his surroundings, if she used the environment she could catch him by—

A blast rang her ears and the world became stilted in white. Her feet no longer had bearing and her shoulder _burned._ Something else struck her side, crushing her ribcage and taking her last breath and she was still falling.

She never felt herself hit the ground. When she regained consciousness, she was braced on the dirt, on her stomach with her left arm supporting her. Her breaths rasped in her helmet—fire in her ribs stopped her from breathing deeply, and yet she felt herself on the verge of hyperventilation, because her right shoulder _hurt_ but she couldn’t move her arm and _oh god he shot it off_ —

“We can stick him in a cryopod when we get back to the castle,” Red said, voice getting closer. Not moving, Pidge swept the area in front of her with her eyes. Her limp right hand was still holding her blade, but her left hand with twitching fingers was only inches away from the handle. “See if you can get the speeders—”

“Wait, don’t get clo—!”

Blue didn’t warn fast enough. As Red stepped into her peripheral, Pidge snatched her blade and drove it between his armor into his side. Red yelled, spasming under the electric current, then fell. New adrenaline carried Pidge as she pushed herself up, her right arm following—still attached after all—and looked to Blue. His gun was limp in his hands as he looked between her, and Red, and her again. “Y-You—”

With strength she would never be able to repeat, Pidge shoved to her feet, yelling in pain and determination as she dove for Blue. He moved too late. With a slight twist, she jabbed the dull blade into the back of his thigh, and he fell just as Red did.

The adrenaline kept her standing, but she still felt the weakness in her legs, the fire in her shoulder and ribs. She couldn’t let herself even kneel: she stooped to place the device on the inside of Blue’s armor collar, then stumbled to do the same for Red, despite the protest of her ribs that made her want to collapse next to them. Then she looked at her arm.

The armor was singed, a black hole burnt almost through at its center. The undersuit was still intact, though she could see the bulge in her shoulder where Blue had dislocated it. Of all things, of all pains, seeing _that_ was what made her eyes start to sting. Asshole.

With not as much delicacy as her injury probably called for, she undid the straps and caught the armor in her hand before it could hit the ground. Red’s speeder had drifted on several feet, but Blue’s was still nearby. She set the shoulder guard on it, cut the strap off with her katar, and pushed it up under her helmet to place the soft leather between her teeth. Deep breaths. Brace her left hand against the cliff wall. One more breath, and then she hit her shoulder into the wall.

Almost three tries to get the shoulder back into place. She could feel the indents in the leather her teeth had made. The helmet was becoming too humid to breathe in from tears and moist breaths. Stupid goddaamn Blue.

She looked at him. Still unconscious with not even a stir. For a moment, she was tempted to yell at him, even if he would not hear—but her body complained at even the thought. Instead, she limped over to him. Her ribs blazed as she bent over and hooked two fingers under his helmet. Her gloved hands brushed the soft skin of his chin.

Maybe giving him a face would make the traitor harder to hate.

She released the helmet and looked up the face of the cliff. No way she could grapple up with her shoulder and ribs as they were. She gathered her things and stumbled back to the slope, willing the adrenaline to last long enough for her to get up and to the agave she had hidden her ride behind.

The bike was a hideous dark green against the sun-bleached desert floor. All Pidge had done was give it a new paint job and not once had anyone asked her where she got it. Nor had anyone questioned what had happened to Shiro’s bike after he disappeared on Kerberos. She almost collapsed on the bike when she reached it. Pulling the helmet off and feeling the dry air on her face gave her just enough strength to peel the rest of the armor off, shove it in the box on the back, and pull her tee shirt and shorts on instead. If she fell off, she would be flayed alive, but she barely had the will to put the helmet back on before she collapsed on the bike and took off for the city.

In Rustling Branches, Arizona, nobody gave a shit. She got as few stares nearly falling off a hoverbike in unprotective clothing as she did the few times she rode out in full armor. The Olkarion Avenue Parking Garage was too cheap for security cameras—she left home-made security on the hoverbike for anyone stupid enough to try to steal it—and if anyone had ever seen her go from armor to civvies, they had never commented or reported suspicion to authorities. She looked at police reports every few days to check. Even as she eased the bike into its parking spot, looking half a step from death, she knew the guy smoking on the stairs twenty feet away wouldn’t so much as offer to call an ambulance. Sometimes, living in a world where no one cared if you made it home at the end of the night was better.

Her eyes stung and her nose was starting to run as she slid off the bike. She wasn’t crying though. Just, her hurt ribs… was causing fluid build up in her lungs… which was making mucus run down her face. Yeah. Biology probably worked like that. She wiped them away and fought to stand up straight. Just two blocks to home. She would clean up and take some painkillers and binge on peanut butter M&Ms and _Legendary Defender_ with Lance. Just two blocks.

“Need a hand?”

The cigarette landed in the corner of her vision. She heard him walk over. Still holding onto the bike, she turned her head to tell him off. His hand hovered over his front pocket, which had a distinct outline of the item in it, one she had grown familiar with every time Shiro, ever faithful Boy Scout, had come over to the house. Matt, long past the joke’s expiration date, would ask, “Is that a knife in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” It was always a knife.

“No assistance necessary,” she said. She reached for the box on the back, for her katar. The electricity wasn’t turned on for the box yet and she was too tired to even try to comprehend the incriminating material he would find if he went digging back there for her wallet.

His hand locked around her right wrist as the other went for the box. “You can barely stand. Let me.”

Her injuries had left her too on edge—he noticed her tense before her attack ever came and stepped back from the punch, yanking on the injured arm as he went back. Pidge howled, but kicked at him. He let go of her arm to step back again, but then he was pulling out the knife. She nearly fell on the box in desperation, pushed it open to yank out the katar. He grabbed her shoulder, yanked her around, pushed her back against the bike, her stolen breath the only thing keeping her from screaming at the pain in her ribs. He held up the knife, popping out the blade level with her throat. “Don’t—”

She moved anyway, sweeping up the lit katar and slicing cleanly through the front of his knife. The blade clattered to their feet. The mugger swept back, eyes wide as he looked at her crackling green blade. “What the fuck is that!”

She gave it a short swing, just so he could see the blade fly out from the hilt and return safely. He couldn’t even get close enough to hope to wrestle it from her. He looked to his broken knife, dropped it, and held his hands up as his attention returned to her. “Listen—”

“Get out.”

He did, stepping back a few steps, watching her, before turning and bolting for the back exit as if he could outrun her grapple. Pidge watched him go, waited until his footsteps no longer echoed through the garage. She placed her katar in the bike’s box. Took out her phone. Closed the box, turned on the security. Took one step from the bike, and immediately collapsed.

She couldn’t breathe, and for several long, painful seconds thought she was going to die in that filthy parking garage. When that thought passed, she knew that alive or dead, she didn’t want to be found by Shiro’s bike. But she couldn’t stand back up. She stretched out her good arm, dug it into the concrete, and pulled herself toward the exit.

With a few abrasions on her arm and fewer tears, she somehow made it to the trashcan by the exit, and tucked herself in the tiny gap between it and the wall. If she leaned far enough, she could see the lights of the apartment building two blocks down.

She waited, breathing as best she could, willing the pain to pass so she could stand. Her one attempt ended with her slumped against the side of the trashcan, tasting blood in her mouth when she pulled her teeth out of her tongue.

Lance was just two blocks away. She hated herself for even the thought. Someone patches you up when you come home bleeding a few times and suddenly you have a crush on him. Feelings were the worst. He doesn’t feel anything for you, she would constantly remind herself. He’s just the only decent human being in this city. Unless she wanted to literally crawl back home, she would have to rely on that decency for the night.

She pulled out her phone and called him.

Voice mail.

That… hurt more than she expected. Like Blue shooting her shoulder. Her roommate and her enemy had both somehow reached a place that they could hurt her. The night was only getting shittier.

He was just asleep, she reasoned, and yet it took her a few minutes to get the bravery for the text. _Can you come get me?_

She waited, phone wrapped tightly in her fingers. Someone with a foul looking rottweiler got onto the sidewalk from the apartment building across from hers, started toward her. She became acutely aware that she had left her only weapon back in the bike. Pidge held her breath when they got close. The dog noticed her, but the owner didn’t. They walked on.

She pulled out her phone and went to a different contact. _C.H._ On her old phone, it had been _Mom._ No call or text history.

She stared at that screen too long as well, and the little green phone next to the name, before deciding, no, she wasn’t that desperate yet.

Back to Lance, she sent a last text. _Lance please respond_

Probably just sleeping. Not that he was under any obligation, anyway. Cleaning up her scrapes was an unnecessary kindness. Always asking to tag along to the grocery store, singing to her whenever she was in the common space, watching cheesy sci-fi shows with her, they were just symptoms of a lonely extrovert. She had never had a friend to know when exactly you became one, but wherever the line was, maybe she and Lance had never crossed it.

Her numb fingers tapped away from the messaging app. She stared at the home screen, wondering how she could be acutely aware that the paladins could find her at any moment and yet feel so small and invisible in the city. Her eyes were starting to sting again, worsening with her self-frustration. Not the time for a pity party.

She went to the voice recorder. Down through memos and notes-to-self, observations and rants when she just needed to get the words out loud, to an unlabeled recording that she had transferred from her old phone three months before.

_“Okay, Pidge, so by the time you find this, I’ll be in space. Probably. Holy shit I’m gonna be in space.”_

Once, she had thought that hearing Matt’s voice was supposed to make him feel closer. Turned out it only ever made the universe feel too big. _“I thought I would have some like, deep wisdom to say, but I can’t think of anything. Uh. . . Don’t drink the cactus juice. Remember to floss. You don’t need luck on your entrance exam but at least sleep the night before.”_

Her brother’s voice also only ever made her cry—which would be like suicide with her ribs in the condition they were in. She swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut. _“Now, when you are at the Garrison. My best advice. Don’t make friends with pilots.”_

 _“Really, Matt?”_ Shiro asked. She could see him at Matt’s desk chair, watching Matt pace the bedroom and make faces at his friend with every jab.

_“They’re a sketchy bunch. Jocks that’ll steal your lunch money.”_

_“You don’t pay for meals like that at the Garrison.”_

Their bickering continued. The pain in her right shoulder had not lessened, but with her left holding the phone up, she had to press the right arm over her mouth to stifle any sounds that would betray her location.

_“You’re the strongest person I know, Pidge. I know you can do anything. But that doesn’t mean you should have to. You—”_

Her own voice came next. _“What are you doing with my phone?”_

_“Watching porn? Ack! Shiro, catch!”_

The chase had lasted not even a minute before she had caught the phone and stopped the recording. When the audio cut out, she started it over again. The next time, her finger slipped on the phone screen, wet from the tears pressed to her cheek. The sobs made her ribs burn in pain all over again, but she didn’t try to stop herself, not until she was too dehydrated and too sore to cry anymore.

Wiping her nose one last time, she eased herself back against the cement wall and let her eyes close. She wasn’t about to ask someone lost in the universe why he left her.

No passerby had seen her yet and they probably would not. She could stay there until the morning. By then, maybe she could stand enough to make it home, where she could listen in on Blue and Red, learn what they knew about the Kerberos failure, and with that, Matt and her dad’s whereabouts. If not… she would come up with something. She always did.

She always had to.

The call startled her so badly the phone vibrated right out of her hand. When she picked it up, she had to stare at the screen in disbelief a moment before she could answer. Even then, she didn’t get her voice to work first.

_“Shit, Pidge, are you injured?”_

He actually sounded worried. “I’m at the parking garage on Olkarion Avenue.”

_“I’m coming. My phone’s at…two percent. It died and I just got it to a charger, I’m so sorry. I have to leave it, be watching for me, okay?”_

“Okay.” She hung up, and wondered if she should hate herself for being so relieved.

* * *

Pidge woke up the next morning coughing. Fire burned up her ribs and into her shoulder with every rough jerk, but trying to stop the coughing only made it worse. Lance saved her with a glass of water held out.

He sat on the edge of the coffee table, wringing his keys in his hand. He still had that look… the one he’d had since he looked at her shoulder the night before. All distant and sad and shit but with an intimate kind of concern. It was weird, but at least he was still _there_. “How are you feeling?”

Maybe it had to do with the fact they had taken her shirt off. She had been around the apartment in a sports bra plenty of times and he had never gotten weird over it, but that was the first time he had ever been so close. In her opinion, it was an entirely unfair matter for him to get weird over. She was the one who had to worry about how to fake having a fever if he realized how hot her face was while he was cleaning her ribs. “Sore.”

“I called out of work today,” he said. “To make sure you’re okay.”

That was… actually sweet. She knew he did not work at the theater like he claimed, but wherever he did work, he liked his coworkers enough that he was normally eager to go in every morning. Still, even with the sentiment, his detached voice and demeanor were unnerving. “You’re acting like I died.”

“Seems like you came pretty close last night.” She couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at her so concerned. “I’m sorry they hurt you.”

“It’s not your fault.”

He made a face she couldn’t read and was quick to push himself to his feet, twirling his key ring on his fingers. “I’m going to run down to the store real quick so we actually have food. Do you want anything in particular?”

“Foodwise, no, but can I have my laptop?”

He had never been in her room, a fact that clearly registered on his face as he inched his way to it. Fortunately, despite the detritus that covered every inch of floor, she left nothing incriminating in the open. A minute later, Lance set the laptop on her legs, a little too gently—it was her ribs and shoulder that were hurt, dammit—and then was out the door.

She reached out with her good hand until she found one of the pillows he had brought out the night before, then slapped it against her face. She wasn’t sure what she planned to do, but the dry “aaaaaaaaa” that went on for nearly a minute was a bit of a surprise. How pathetic was she to get so starved for someone caring that she developed a crush on the first person who did anything kind for her?

Lance cared. He cared. It was nice, so nice, but not an excuse for the weird warm bursting feeling. That would lead to her doing something dumb, like wanting to tell him the truth of everything. Infatuation was a horrible way of deciding who to trust.

Matt wouldn’t be nearly so hard on her as she was on herself. If she told him she liked Lance, he’d throw an arm around her shoulder, pull her in close, and start whispering the game plan, featuring himself as Ultimate Wingman. If his matchmaking stories from the Garrison were true, she would have a date by the end of the day.

She opened the laptop and settled herself into the couch, as comfortably as she could be in light of her injuries. Whatever Lance was doing to her brain chemistry was easing the pain to somewhat ignorable. Maybe affection served a function other than making you do stupid things after all. She stretched her legs out to the coffee table, set the computer on her thighs, and went to listen in on the paladins.

Blue’s suit was silent. Understandable, he had been in a fight only a few hours before. She might have to wait even a few days before she could hear anything. She pulled up her map. The suit was stored about half an hour out of the city. The paladins were based in the desert, then, and she finally had an exact location for some infiltration.

Unlike Blue, Red was active. When she switched the channel, the spike in volume made her jump and she hasted to turn it down to a more manageable level. Red was breathing heavily, grunting whenever something crashed near the mic. Not ten hours since she knocked him out and he was already in another fight.

The fight was proven to just be sparring when someone else declared, _“Yield.”_ Whatever pressure was on Red was released, and he heaved in a breath.

 _“You don’t have to push yourself so hard,”_ said the same voice. It was familiar, one she couldn’t place. Definitely not Matt’s voice, yet it made her think of him. She leaned toward the screen, as if it would reveal the identity.

 _“Slacking won’t get anyone anywhere,”_ said yet another voice, this one unfamiliar. Not quite British, but there was definitely an accent. _“I’m not aiming for his injury and its placement does not hinder any muscles or otherwise that he would need in a fight.”_

The Red Paladin said, _“I’m fine, Shiro.”_

Shiro.

Shiro was not just alive, he was with the paladins.

And if Shiro was with them, then so could…

 _“Any updates, Hunk?”_ Shiro asked.

 _“…through the data from all the hospitals and clinics in the area again,”_ someone new said, voice growing louder as he came closer. _“No one has received any patients with the injuries you described for Green.”_

 _“We should be looking for him,”_ Red stated. Pidge grabbed her hair as an alternative to screaming. They were talking about _her_ when they should be talking about _her family_.

 _“The Blue Paladin should be looking for him,”_ the Accent said. _“He’s the one who lost Green in the first place.”_

 _“Last night was pretty hard on him,”_ Hunk tried to reason. _“Hasn’t he earned a break? A small one,”_ he corrected when he got a _look_ that even Pidge could feel.

_“Yes, I’m sure his absence has everything to do with last night’s defeat and nothing to do with his infatuation. What were your exact words this morning?”_

_“Aw, don’t make me say it again. I have a mocking limit on Lance, only twice a day—Okay, okay. ‘I can’t train today because Pidge is_ deathly ill _and only_ I _can nurse her back to health!’”_

Short, wry laughter at Lance’s expense.

The front door opened. Pidge slammed her laptop shut, almost throwing it from the force. Plastic bags full of produce and boxed goods clattered onto the floor, and then Lance was at her side, making her jump even harder. “Hey, hey, it’s just me. What’s wrong?”

He sat on the very edge of the couch next to her, those dark blue eyes searching her and his hands hovering inches away, as if he wanted to grab onto her. She remembered just how bad she was at reading people. He seemed so sincere. “Spooked myself thinking about last night.”

Something like guilt crossed over his face. He was leaning in too close, where she couldn’t breathe. His hand landed on hers and squeezed it lightly. “You’re safe here.”

She nodded. After too long, he let her hand go. “I didn’t really know what to get,” he continued, “so, probably ended up getting a bunch of nothing. What do you want for breakfast?”

“Whatever you want,” she said. She watched him pick up the bags and go to the kitchen. The shoulder he shot throbbed.


End file.
